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RIP Pretty Good Gaming - and also what's up with YouTube's algorithm?

nowhat

Member
"Pretty Good Gaming" is/was a YouTube channel that may seem like a dime in a dozen - concentrated on gaming news, gossip and reviews/impressions (they seldom if ever seemed to get review codes, so those were consistently after the official release). Still, I liked them (gotta adore that lovely Welsh accent), subscribed to them, gave them 1€/month in Patreon even just out of support. Well, no more at least for the time being. Gareth, the founder of the channel, gives a rather frank and heartfelt description of what happened:



Sometimes it goes like this, sorry for him/them. What I can't understand is the fact that I've consistently watched most of their content (including the podcast - didn't really watch it, but it was "background music" on Sundays). And yet his video was posted two days ago, and it never popped up in my Youtube feed until now, by some freak accident I guess (I was watching completely unrelated content). Yes, there was a significant gap in new content for the channel, due to reasons explained in the video above. Yet, if the YouTube algorithm had any real kind of real intelligence, it surely would have shown that video to me right after it was released, I did follow the channel very closely after all.

So, YouTube sucks for smaller content creators and favors spamming videos instead of more thought-out content, news at 11. Just that, if there's a smaller channel out there that you like and would like to continue existing, subscribe and go out your way to click on those videos. Hell, you don't have to watch them even, have them play in the background (Google doesn't know you don't really watch them - at least yet...). The big publications and popular streamers don't need your support, it's the smaller ones that do.

Edit: oh yeah, just to be clear - when I'm referring to "them" I mean the channel had quite a bit of staff at one point, and lately two people up until this. Not a pronoun thing (although if that floats your boat, go on ahead).
 
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01011001

Banned
true, the only way you can do apread out video releases on youtube is if you have a dedicated following and you are well known

JonTron releases a new video once every decade it feels like, but he gets millions of views in the first 48h and has no issue,
any creator that does that and doesn't have this kind of following will die very quickly tho
 

Great Hair

Banned
If only 33% of the subscribers donated $1 to 5 each month ... ; one is the shitty algorithm, the other is those that consume not giving a fuck aka donating. I´ve never heard of them, but is this not possible using automated scripts? auto edit the news, topics and have an robo-voice (paid one) narrate it?

He should blame his fanbase for not subbing to patreon. $1 patreon tier is dumb to say the least, 30% cut for the platform, 30% taxes ... 40 cents per sub ... that is just stupid.

 
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MrS

Banned
His problem was he grew too fast and hired too many people. Shoulda kept it small and a hobby..
 

dDoc

Member
Had forgotten re this channel. Used to be decent at first then I dunno it didnt click any more, something changed.

Sorry for him but guess this is the way of the world.
 
Stumbled across their videos a couple months ago and they weren't for me, not to mention there's tonnes of gaming news outlets on Youtube. You can't compete in an ever-changing landscape such as that.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
I always thought it was funny that YouTube doesn't recommend me my own subbed channels but random channels I've never cared to watch.

Recently i was recommended a video of a girl playing chess. Now my feed is full of her vids. But my subs? Even if i manually click on their channel and watch a vid they don't recommend me more of their older videos.

It's pretty lame how they pick winners and losers.
 

junguler

Banned
i'm not familiar with this channel but there is just too many people doing too many things to even notice someone not being there anymore, i'm subbed to 1k+ channels and get 400+ video notifications per day, it's hard to keep track of everything when you are like me and enjoy a wide variety of things. the algorithm doesn't know what to do with me either as i'm never clicking on a video and just watch the video on mpv or download it with youtube-dl.
 

nowhat

Member
I always thought it was funny that YouTube doesn't recommend me my own subbed channels but random channels I've never cared to watch.

Recently i was recommended a video of a girl playing chess. Now my feed is full of her vids. But my subs? Even if i manually click on their channel and watch a vid they don't recommend me more of their older videos.

It's pretty lame how they pick winners and losers.
Oh yeah, it has been very weird recently - not related to this channel but it general. My top picks seem to be 15 to 60 second clips of "funny" moments from some games, from channels I've never watched. Some have a decent amount of views and are several years old, others are quite new with only few K views. I honestly don't know what's going on, more often than not the clips are from games I've shown no interest in.
 

nowhat

Member
A channel you that was moderately successful a few years back, but probably won't hear from now. That's beside the point really - the point is, why didn't this make it to my feed.

(I have like two dozen subscriptions, so it's not like the competition is fierce)
 

Spukc

always chasing the next thrill
A channel you that was moderately successful a few years back, but probably won't hear from now. That's beside the point really - the point is, why didn't this make it to my feed.

(I have like two dozen subscriptions, so it's not like the competition is fierce)
not a clue youtube is weird .. subscribe to gamesack
 

BadBurger

Is 'That Pure Potato'
Only way to succeed at the YouTube algorithm is to make sensationalist clickbait thumbails and spam outrage videos every three hours that are at least 10 minutes long.

One of the reasons I have never gotten into youtubers (I stick to official channels of stuff like TV shows, scientific institutions, news orgs, etc) is because of those dumbass thumbnails and videos titled specifically to appeal to thirteen year olds.
 
And yet creatures like pewdiepie are still going?

YouTube sucks.

I dont watch Pew but I dont mind that he is still up there as the GOAT because after all he is the grandad of that whole streamer lifestyle so to me thast fine. What I do mind is new channels that are made for the purpose of only drama are skyrocketing. I forgot the name but a quite big channel, guy makes like 2 videos a month because they are so over produced and its so much effort to put it all together, he does have a solid following but nowhere near or fast as other up and coming trash content ones.

Like one specific channel is made only for Rise and Fall of...youtubers/streamers/whatevers. Its a full on drama bait, like E channel celebraty take on their lives. I think he went from 1- 250.000 subs in 3 months. All he does is say how they faild as a streamer and obviously uses the characters that are most prominent currently. So naturally its going to get a lot of engagement since there will be so many ppl commenting about their most loved or hated streamer. But its pure Keemstar drama trash and you can tell he picked here and there bits and pieces of what best worked for other YTers and combined it. Like the way he starts off is exactly the same type of intro Theneedledrop does regarding his name etc.

Look at these idiotic thumbnails, half the time they have nothing to do with the title. this is not a genuine snap from their video, they posed like this for the thumbnail...

bFKVYjH.png
 
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BigBooper

Member
Maybe I do YouTube differently than everyone else, but I subscribe to a channel, I click on my subscriptions to see what's new, and I watch a video or save it to watch later. Where does this algorithm come in?
 

nowhat

Member
Maybe I do YouTube differently than everyone else, but I subscribe to a channel, I click on my subscriptions to see what's new, and I watch a video or save it to watch later. Where does this algorithm come in?
It's basically the "front page". And recommendations in general.

TBH I do that often as well, but it's now the annual "Superbooth" event (synths and music gear in general) so my Sonicstate subscription keeps flooding my subscriptions page with videos I've been trying to avoid watching - very nice gear and all, but I really don't have the space right now and don't want to tempt myself.
 

Soodanim

Member
Never heard of that channel. Sounds like I might have missed out.

The algorithm is annoying. The home page recommendations persist with the same old shit for months on end.

A few years ago I turned off watch history because I was sick of being told to watch stuff again, but you’re fucked either way really.

Everyone laughs and jokes about what thumbnails work for getting views, but it’s the truth and it’s sad. If you don’t carefully curate your subscriptions, the whole site is a mess.
 

Shubh_C63

Member
Not to mention subscribing to these channels severely limits your ability to find new videos. It traps you in this echo chamber.

I found the best way is to browse incognito.
I don't really blame YouTube for this, the algorithm works. Not to mention 11 second videos are the future
 

zaanan

Banned
The thing to remember about Google/Youtube/Facebook/etc is that we are not their customers. We are the commodity they are delivering to their real customers: the advertisers. Therefore they shove your eyeballs to the videos that get them the most money, and they don’t care if we like it or not. They don’t answer to us.
 
It's not that fucking complicated.

Subscribe to channels you like.

'Ring the bell' for shit you don't want to miss.

Bookmark https://www.youtube.com/feed/subscriptions and scroll through that when you 'want to watch YouTube'.

If you feel like being led down a rabbit hole by the almighty algorithm click a suggestion of a thing you're not subscribed to.

Maybe you failed your beloved 'Pretty Good Gaming' by not doing so, I don't know. I only made it about 3 minutes into the guy's narration of his lack of YouTube business acumen.
 

Hezekiah

Banned
Maybe I do YouTube differently than everyone else, but I subscribe to a channel, I click on my subscriptions to see what's new, and I watch a video or save it to watch later. Where does this algorithm come in?
I do this now and then, but much more often I go to the recommended page just in case there are interesting videos from channels I'm not subscribed to. To be honest I prefer to keep my subscribed channel list from being too big.
 

Karak

Member
The algo is all over the place. Only recently I actually grabbed a couple of of folks from huge channels that run the backend and had them look at what was going on and no one could figure it out. Some stuff you can track but other stuff is just so out there in how it works that its difficult to track what works
 

Dream-Knife

Banned
I dont watch Pew but I dont mind that he is still up there as the GOAT because after all he is the grandad of that whole streamer lifestyle so to me thast fine. What I do mind is new channels that are made for the purpose of only drama are skyrocketing. I forgot the name but a quite big channel, guy makes like 2 videos a month because they are so over produced and its so much effort to put it all together, he does have a solid following but nowhere near or fast as other up and coming trash content ones.

Like one specific channel is made only for Rise and Fall of...youtubers/streamers/whatevers. Its a full on drama bait, like E channel celebraty take on their lives. I think he went from 1- 250.000 subs in 3 months. All he does is say how they faild as a streamer and obviously uses the characters that are most prominent currently. So naturally its going to get a lot of engagement since there will be so many ppl commenting about their most loved or hated streamer. But its pure Keemstar drama trash and you can tell he picked here and there bits and pieces of what best worked for other YTers and combined it. Like the way he starts off is exactly the same type of intro Theneedledrop does regarding his name etc.

Look at these idiotic thumbnails, half the time they have nothing to do with the title. this is not a genuine snap from their video, they posed like this for the thumbnail...

bFKVYjH.png
That's called soy face. Apparently zoomers and gen a have negative testosterone.
 
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